A COMPOS ITIONAL AND MICROSTRUCTURAL STUDY OF EIGHTH-CENTURY BC BRONZES FROM MOITA DA LADRA (TAGUS ESTUARY): HOW DID THE SPREAD OF THE PHOENICIAN METALLURGY TAKE PLACE IN WESTERN IBERIA?

摘要

Metals from a votive deposit at Moita da Ladra (Tagus Estuary) dating to the eighth century BC were studied by micro-EDXRF, optical microscopy and Vickers testing to investigate the adoption of Phoenician innovations by indigenous communities. Artefacts are made of bronze alloys with suitable tin contents (11.6 +/- 2.3 wt%) and very low iron impurities (< 0.05 wt%), and were often manufactured using the long post-casting sequence. Comparisons with indigenous and Phoenician metallurgies from western Iberia revealed a conservative technology suggesting that the spread of Phoenician innovations was very slow. In this region, the adoption of a diversified copper-based metallurgy and reduction furnaces only seems to occur during the Post-Orientalizing Period, c. sixth to fourth centuries BC.